Easter promise

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

We will celebrate Easter on Sunday. Of course, it's also true that, since the early church, every Sunday has been understood as a weekly memorial of Jesus' resurrection.

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But just as we can and should celebrate the gift of life each day, we reserve the biggest celebration for our birthday. The same holds true for Easter.

Because Easter forms the foundation for what we believe - if Christ was not raised from the dead our faith is worthless, as St. Paul said (1 Cor 15:17) - it ranks as Christianity's most important feast.

Yet, despite the historical reality of the Risen Lord - attested to by more than 500 of his followers - Easter can be hard to grasp because in many ways it is an IOU, a promise.

Easter promises us that just as Christ rose from the dead, we too will rise from the dead on the last day and live with God for all eternity.

The idea that death will lead to life is a big, even seemingly contradictory, promise. Like all promises, it relies on faith. This is not something we can "kick the tires on" or try on for size so we can see how we look in the mirror.

Maybe that's why we Catholics are so good at finding examples in daily life to explain this mysterious article of faith. When we do that, we are in good company. Jesus did the same: "Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat. But if it dies, it produces much fruit" (Jn 12:24).

So we find signs of new life in the death of winter. Some of my favorites are buds on pussy willow and shoots of garlic, daffodils and rhubarb popping through the nearly frozen earthen shroud.

Or watching a friend or relative, made gaunt by the poisons of chemotherapy, gain strength, weight and stamina as the death of cancer brings life anew.

Or seeing a once heartbroken person, who suffered through the death of a spouse, emerge from the tomb of grief into the life of a new marriage.

We see death and new life in other ways too, including job loss, ends of relationships, or countless big and small disappointments that lead to something better.

As wondrous and wonderful as these examples of death and new life are, they remain metaphors for the resurrection of Christ and the assurance that his resurrection - "the first fruits" (1 Cor 15:20) - holds for us.

Happy Easter!